Many file systems use journaling of metadata updates in a log file, often referred to as a journal, to provide file system recovery in event of a system crash. Updates made to file system metadata, which includes data stored on disk that is not the contents of a user file, is recorded in a log file on disk. Writing to the log file is sufficient to allow recreation of the metadata in event of a system crash. If a system crashes, the log file is read and the metadata put into a consistent state by applying updates to the metadata and writing that data to its home location on disk. The log file is considered a circular file, and when it is near-full, or as it is about to “wrap”, metadata that has been updated, or “dirty metadata” of the file system is written to disk to avoid overwriting of the oldest region of the log file. This ensures correctness when replaying the log if a system crash occurs. Updated metadata blocks are kept in a queue (sometimes called an age-queue) sorted by the oldest log page that describes updates to that block. This allows the log manager to quickly determine which blocks need to be written to disk, as the log file fills, to free up the oldest regions of the log file. The more metadata that has to be written when the log file is near-full, the longer it takes before a new transaction can start and overwrite the oldest region of the log file.